And the Stars Like Diamonds
by Hellen Highwater
Summary: A Naruto drabble, which then decided to grow a plot. Stargazing, and pursing dreams. Twoshot, complete, no pairing, somewhat AU.
1. In Pursuit of a Dream

*A N D * T H E * S T A R S * L I K E * D I A M O N D S *

_…and the stars were like diamonds in the vault of the sky, glittering, tantalizing but locked away, too far to reach but too beautiful to ignore._

Naruto stargazed. Usually, he would lay on the roof of his apartment building, but he preferred the top of the Hokage monument, both for the view and for the symbolism. Because Naruto knew his face would never be on that mountain.

He'd always known.

It might come as a surprise that he didn't remember the first time someone called him 'demon'. He didn't. He'd actually thought it was his name—he was five the first time that anyone (and it had been the Hokage) called him Naruto. Sometimes he still forgot that he had a real name. He'd actually written 'Demon' on one of his academy papers, before he'd caught himself and blacked it out.

He didn't remember the first time his apartment had been ransacked while he was gone, or the first time he had been kicked out of a store for no reason, or sold bad goods at exorbitant prices. That was just how life was for the Demon.

He used to care. Every time someone spit on him, or kicked him, or swore at him, it hurt. But it had been this way his whole life, and slowly, he just stopped. Stopped caring. And things didn't hurt so much, but he felt empty. But empty was better than pain, so that was okay.

Sometimes, though, the emptiness was too much, and it yawned inside him, vast and hollow, a gaping wound he couldn't stitch shut. And when that happened he would wait until dark had fallen, and most of Konoha had turned off the lights, and go to the very top of the Hokage mountain, and look up. And the cloudless sky would be open above him, bigger than anything, bigger than than the world, bigger than the Kyuubi, bigger than the emptiness.

And he would look at the stars, pinpricks scattered on black velvet, so big—bigger than he could dream of—and so far away. So hot and bright and cold and distant. He would pick out the constellations, would count the stars, find the ones he knew the names for and give names to the ones he didn't. He would mark Polaris, the one unmoving object of the night sky, and would close one eye and reach up with his finger and blot it out.

And he would dream. He dreamed that he had friends, real ones, who wanted to be around him because they liked him, not because they had to. That he had family, who waited for him at home when he was away. That old man Sarutobi was still alive, that the Fourth hadn't died, that the villagers didn't hate him.

And sometimes he dreamed he would become the Hokage, because everything he dreamed was impossible anyways, so why not add one more to the list?

He wished he could be a star. Not a movie star, like Princess Fuun, but an actual star.

A burning ball of gas and plasma, held together by its own weight, surrounded in the cold beauty of space and pouring his light-life out, reaching earth from thousands of millions of miles away, admired and untouchable, but unremarkable. Just another pinprick of light. Too far away for anything to bother him, and as patient and ancient as the world itself. To be free of all responsibilities but simply _being_.

He wished the world would just let him _be_.

He sometimes believed that there was a part of the Kyuubi that had seeped into the mostly-human nature of himself. The part that was as elemental as a stormcloud, as unfettered as the wind, as unchanging as the dawn. The force of nature that cared not about time or season, that couldn't be worn away and never aged, as ancient as the day it was made. A juggernaut, set in motion and continuing on forever and ever, utterly unstoppable. _(And this was why he would never be Hokage; the people could feel it, could sense that he was not quite human, and could not be trusted)_

He didn't want to be Hokage to leave his mark on the world; to be remembered. That didn't matter. He wanted to be Hokage to be part of something bigger than himself, something that was more than his puny life could ever amount to. Naruto didn't care about how he was remembered. Naruto didn't want to be remembered. Naruto never wanted to go at all.

He wasn't afraid of death. He just felt like he was supposed to be something bigger than that. Something beyond death. Like a storm, or the wind, or the dawn, or a demon.

Or a star.

But as he lay, face upturned to the heavens, a being not quite human, not quite demon, not quite mortal and not quite anything else, he wished—not for immortality, but for eternity. To simply always _be_.

The starlight danced on his face, like fingertips over fallen leaves, and he reached for them, forever burning beyond his reach.

** A/N: I'm supposed to be studying for an exam on world war two. Clearly, that's going well. But I got side tracked a couple days ago, and the italicized line below the title popped into my head. I considered naming this fic _"In Pursuit of a Dream"_ but decided that this fit better with the next chapter. And trust me—Naruto's got a jutsu you've never seen before. Naruto isn't mine, which is probably good for his health, but is really no fun for me. I do, however, have lawyers, so you can sue me if you want.**


	2. With the Sun in his Hand

*A N D * T H E * S T A R S * L I K E * D I A M O N D S *

_…and the stars were like diamonds in the vault of the sky, glittering, tantalizing but locked away, too far to reach but too beautiful to ignore._

The war was brutal.

Unexpected, unwanted, taking Konoha completely unprepared.

The first week had knocked out fully one third of the leaf-nin, hitting all ranks equally from genin to ANBU. No one was spared.

_ No one._

Punch-drunk, Konoha reeled, gathering forces too slow, too shocked, to wounded. It teetered on the brink of utter destruction, the enemy forces flooding in at every side, seemingly rising from the earth itself like starving dogs, to rip and tear at the sides of the once-great village. Those shinobi who could still gather themselves together flew in desperate suicide charges, protecting the ragged remains of the civilian population.

They were slaughtered.

Or that's what it felt like, anyways. Later years would discover a seventy-percent mortality rate among ninja in the first two months, and forty percent of the noncombatant population in Konoha was killed.

But after those first two months, all of the impurities had been burned out of Kohoha's corps, and all that remained was the strongest, the best, the most cunning. Everyone else had died, leaving only the most powerful, banded together with the red chakra of Konoha's secret weapon. And that group, that inferno-forged blade of the Leaf, began to move forwards.

They started small, raids on minor enemy bases, strikes on supply trains. But as they succeeded, they became even stronger, and their numbers began to grow. They rallied around the blonde hair and vivid blue eyes that seemed so like the Yondaime's, putting their faith in the indefatigable strength and unpredictability of Uzumaki Naruto. And they made progress.

But it wasn't enough. They were still outmatched.

And then fate smiled on Konoha.

It was a genin team—and barely genin, because it was war and anyone who could hold a kunai fought—that found it. Stumbled right across it in the middle of a mission, and it was a wonder they survived. But they did, and they carried the news back—they had found the main base. But what could they do about it? They didn't have enough troops to attempt a frontal assault.

As he had so many other times before, when his people faltered, Uzumaki Naruto stepped forwards.

He plummeted.

Nothing but the air to break his fall, nothing to hear but the roar of the wind and the crackle of chakra. _Is this what freedom feels like?_

Naruto laughed, and the Kyuubi howled his pleasure.

Fingers etched with scars formed hand signs, and the first stages of Naruto's original jutsu, his masterwork, began. Chakra gathered in his palms, hot enough to burn but Naruto felt nothing, and condensed into matter. He spread his arms wide, enjoying the feeling of flight, the sun on his face, the tones of his own laughter in his ears, _one last time_. And then he brought his hands together.

His hands, capable of hurling a kunai in excess of 500 meters per second, rushed towards each other, palms flat, each bearing their load of chakra-generated plutonium isotope 239. Thick walls of chakra surrounded his arms, forming a chamber to prevent the explosion from escaping to soon. He spoke what he knew would be his final words, a smile on his face.

"_Galaxy Style: Celestial Fission!"_

And then the plutonium in his hands slammed together with such force that the nucleus of the atoms fragmented.

Between the scarred and callused palms of Uzumaki Naruto, Jinchurrikki of Konohagakure no Sato, a star was born.

His body was vaporized immediately, as was the enemy camp he had placed himself in the center of. He died alongside twenty-one thousand, five hundred and thirty-six enemy shinobi; a record that has never been matched by any single ninja before or since.

And at 10:07 pm, on October tenth, the sun rose in the west.

_ No one ever figured out exactly how he'd done it. The legendary Celestial Fission technique was one whispered about in shinobi circles, half believed, half fairy tale. But those who saw it would never forget. That tiny speck, not even discernible as a human being, falling from the back of a raven summons high above the clouds. The angry sparks of chakra manipulation trailing behind that speck as it fell, like lighting in slow-motion, lazily tracing a path to earth. And then that white-hot flash, swelling outwards, a perfect circle, absolutely silent. And then seeing no more, because a star had been born, too hot and bright to see. _

_They built a memorial, those who remembered. The Hokage mountain in Konoha, pitted and marred with war, still stood. They added one face to it, only half the size of the others, at the very top, with a small plaque at the very peak. Where the other faces looked down over their village with stern brows, this one angled upwards, facing the stars, smiling. _

"_Uzumaki Naruto_

_Konohagakure no Sato_

_Head of the Jounin Corps_

_He reached the stars."_

_Please review._


End file.
